Last Rites
by Roland 'Jim' Lowery
Summary: Former Lance Corporal Neil Wolfhound reflects on the events that brought him to his untimely end.


The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.

The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to **esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com**. Thank you.

* * *

"They never fail who die in a great cause."  
-Lord Byron

* * *

**Last Rites**  
by Roland 'Jim' Lowery

**Monday, August 15  
3233 AD**

_It has been said_ many times before that when you are on the verge of dying, your life will flash before you eyes. The truth is that it doesn't so much flash as explode, scattering everything else in your mind the way a hand grenade slings shrapnel in every direction. The memories burn away everything that they have made of you, an ironic twist of fate that takes away all hope and all fear until there is nothing left but the past.

No present. No future.

I am Neil Wolfhound, former Lance Corporal of the former Acorn Royal Marine Corp, and these are the last images I see before this life ends and the next one begins . . .

* * *

I kicked at a small pebble that sat next to the roof's edge. It was a stupid, impulsive thing for me to do, but I decided that under the circumstances I could allow myself one stupid, impulsive thing. Getting it out of my system would allow me to perform the upcoming task without any nervous mental tics getting in the way.

The pebble fell through the space between the buildings until it hit a metal surface with a low-pitched _gong_. I had already scouted the area and knew that there were no SWATbots hanging around, so I felt confident that the noise had gone unheard. Where I was headed, however, there would be plenty of SWATbots, all of them tuned to hear anything louder than a soft heartbeat. I sighed at the thought and turned my gaze inward to find a center of calm.

Having steadied all my nerves and steeled my determination to a hard, needle sharp point, I turned away from the building's edge and started to creep across the rooftop.

This had been, once upon a time, a light commercial center here in the city of Heliopolis. I almost wished that I could say that I and my wife used to come here to buy food at the local grocers or clothes at the department store, but that particular commercial center had been torn down long ago and replaced with a stealthbot factory. I had no real memories of this part of town anymore other than one or two missions I had run through its desecrated husk these past few years.

My jaw tightened as I made the short jump from one roof to another. I smashed my anger flat before it could interfere with my concentration, but the bitter aftertaste of it still lingered. I and my fellow Mobians had been fighting this war for nearly ten years to no avail, and it sickened me that it was taking this long to defeat one pitiful tyrant.

If only the ARMC had managed to stay in one piece before the coup . . . but it had already been halfway through the process of shutting down when the coup had begun. The King, oblivious to the danger he had held so close, had decided to break up all the military branches of the Acorn Kingdom. It had been hailed as a wise choice at the time by many, even me. I had been looking forward to the fat early retirement bonus that had been coming my way and the chance to be with my wife twenty-four/seven. Under Warlord Julian's direction, we had nearly eliminated all threats to the kingdom's security, and it didn't seem like the military had any reason left to exist.

It wasn't until much later that we would realize just how much we would be needed. With most of the ground forces already decommissioned, none of the military branches had been able to effectively stop the hordes of Peacebots that had suddenly turned on their former wards, the Mobian populace. Those that had tried were broken and scattered to the wind or - more often than not - captured and roboticized.

I was one of the fortunate few that had managed to escape. I had fled my home of Heliopolis, lost my wife to the roboticizer, and joined a small band of Freedom Fighters based in the nearby Emerald Hills. Along with the other core members of Emerald Village, I'd been running occasional raids on the enemy forces occupying the city. We'd never seemed to do much damage, unfortunately, and often we'd end up on the losing side of any encounter.

Anger began to boil up again as I thought how every SWATbot we managed to destroy would simply get replaced with another from the factory, but every comrade in arms we would lose would be gone forever. But that would soon change.

The others would have stopped me if they knew what I was going to do. I could almost hear every single reason they'd have given, echoing through my mind. I ignored them - _had_ to ignore them - because I knew that what I was going to do _had_ to be done for the good of the people, the kingdom, and the entire world.

I was going to kill Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

* * *

The message had been intercepted just a few days before, thanks to our resident hacker. Robotnik was coming in from Robotropolis to do a general on-site inspection. It was a rarity for him as he preferred to send his sniveling sidekick on such inspections, but we had already heard some time before that he planned on setting up one of his newest major projects in Heliopolis due to the low-level threat assessment of our group.

I blamed myself for many of the losses our team seemed to incur. Many of the plans I would come up with would depend on every team member working with clockwork precision, just like my old squad-mates back in the corps. But Freedom Fighters are not marines, and the plans would often fall to pieces.

But fate was fickle, and now the very fact that we weren't considered dangerous to Robotnik's plans would be the very thing that would allow me to atone for my past mistakes. Even if it cost me my own life, I would end this nightmare blight on our world once and for all.

Tightly strapped to my back was a sniper rifle that I had managed to scrounge a few years before. It was made mostly from high-grade plastics and ceramics, and I had already drained the power cell down to only two shots. If the SWATbots had anything that could detect the rifle's few metal parts or energy signature, I deserved to be caught.

As I came closer to the hoverpod landing area, I moved further into the shadows. Thermographic sensors could still pick me up, but there wasn't any reason to make it easy for them. The smell of industrial waste and refuse hit me square in the face, but I couldn't afford to stop and gag. I could already see the running lights of Robotnik's pod off in the distance, blinking steadily in the cloudy night sky.

He would reach the platform at about the same time I would be settling into position above him, but only if I hurried. I heard the subtle whine of hoverbike engines as SWATbots patrolled just below the rooflines. A hoverpod would float overhead occasionally, but I easily avoided them by ducking into rooftop stairwells.

Gradually, I made my way to the platform terminal. There was a good bit of space between the building I was on and the terminal's roof, so I had to chance climbing down and dashing across the parking lot below. Once inside the building, I allowed myself to relax a bit.

This terminal had been abandoned completely after Robotnik had taken over, but it hadn't been torn down. Instead of ripping out the old and putting in new, he had decided to simply build an entirely new building on the opposite side of the platform, chock full of automated equipment and techbots. So I took to the stairs with no fear of detection at this point; and, after a few short minutes, I was at the top of the control tower.

Everything was completely burnt out in the control room. It looked like everything had been torched with an explosive. Considering Robotnik's "mangle it first, ask questions later" style of diplomacy, it probably had. All of the windows had been broken out long ago, and a cool breeze blew through them, along with the bright white and yellow glare of landing lights from the platform below.

I stepped up onto a charred and rusted out console and looked out the window-space behind it. I had arrived just in time to see Robotnik's pod setting down. With a barely contained snarl pressing at my lips, I slung the sniper rifle from my back and detached the gun strap that was now hanging loose. After I took my shot - for better or for worse - I would need neither it nor the gun anymore. I dropped to one knee, steadied myself against the window sill, then pulled in a deep breath before charging the rifle up and looking through the high-powered scope.

Almost immediately, Robotnik jumped into sharp relief in my view. The door to his pod had just opened, and he was preparing to step out. I was half tempted to take him down right then and there, but I knew that I had to take enough time to be one hundred percent sure of my aim. I had to allow him just a few more moments of wretched life.

He stepped out of the pod and was immediately followed by that whining, niggling little mutant, Snively. The smaller human was babbling something to the larger one, who was ignoring him completely as he looked around. A SWATbot walked up and handed Robotnik a small digipad, then saluted and stepped back as the doctor sauntered on toward the automated terminal.

I, in the meantime, kept his fat neck directly in my cross-hairs, waiting . . . waiting for the right moment . . . waiting . . .

_NOW!_

The shot was as silent as death, a beam of coherent light sent from the focusing crystal and through the heavens like a judgment bolt hurled by one of the gods of old. It cut through the air, straight and true-

-and came in contact with nothing, almost a full yard out from Robotnik's position. Through my scope I could see that the laser blast had simply dissipated without a trace, having hit upon some sort of energy dampening field. I could also see Robotnik look up almost directly at me, point, and mouth the words "Seize him."

He looked as calm as ice. As if nothing major had happened. As if this was just another boring inspection. He looked, in short, as if he had expected this all along.

When four steely hands came down on my arms and forced the rifle out of my grasp, I realized that was, in fact, exactly what had happened. A stun blast hit me, and everything sank into darkness.

* * *

I awoke to find myself in manacles and being held up by two SWATbots. I couldn't help but notice that I was standing on the platform of a roboticizer and that Robotnik and Snively were just a few feet away, grinning malevolently.

"Snively here has been telling me all about you, my dear boy," Robotnik rumbled in a mock-pleasant tone. "Lance Corporal Wolfhound of the ARMC . . . yes? It's all in the old databases, of course, but I prefer to get my information straight from the horse's - or, in this case, the wolf's - mouth."

I simply stared at him in silent rage, which seemed to suit him just fine.

"Ah, not very talkative I see," he continued. "What a shame. Many of my captives are much more vocal and _much_ more entertaining. Why don't I just do the talking for you, hmm? I'm quite sure that you've guessed by now that I did, indeed, know that you would be making an attempt on my life. You shouldn't be so surprised. You creatures are _so_ predictable sometimes."

He turned away from me and chuckled evilly. "Didn't it ever occur to you that the very reason I came here was to draw you and your cohorts out? I knew at least one of you would jump at the chance to kill me or capture me, and I'm ever so glad you did not disappoint. You see," he said as he turned back and stepped closer, looming over me, "you and your fellow Emerald 'Freedom Fighters' are a nuisance. I have far more important things to be doing and far more worthy adversaries to deal with than your pitiful ragtag group. You are an annoying fly, and I am swatting you right _now_, before you manage to become an actual threat.

"To those ends, I have also captured your friends. Oh, yes," he confirmed when he saw my expression change, "I have them, too. When they realized that their precious leader had gone off on his own, they rushed out to join him in his righteous crusade." His grin grew impossibly wide. "They never made it past the city limits."

Robotnik straightened up and turned away from me with a flourish of his cape. He snapped his fingers and started towards the door. Snively quickly joined him after throwing one last nasty look in my direction.

"Roboticize him and the rest of his miserable little group," the human ordered the SWATbots as he left. "They will be stand as more examples for those who try to pester me with their petty moralistic values . . . "

* * *

As the glass tube slides down around me and with freshly relived memories still buzzing in my head, I fully realize that I have failed and that Mobius will have to live with the tyranny of Dr. Ivo Robotnik for just a little while longer . . .

**END**

Roland 'Jim' Lowery  
esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com

March 29, 2003


End file.
